1. What This Concept Is About
The basic setup
後得位 is one of those terms that looks technical and dry at first, but actually points to something very intimate that every practitioner of any depth eventually has to face. The Sanskrit *pṛṣṭhalabdha-avasthā* literally means "the state of what is subsequently obtained" — *pṛṣṭha* ("after/behind"), *labdha* ("obtained"), *avasthā* ("state/position"). It names the bodhisattva's stage of activity after rising from fundamental non‑conceptual samādhi (根本定位, *mūla-avasthā*). It is the *when* in which the wisdom that has touched the formless turns, walks back into the world of forms, and lets its light work upon visible things.
The concept is paired with 根本定位 in a strict dyad, and the dyad is the heart of the matter. 根本定位 (the "fundamental position") is when the bodhisattva is sitting in 非分別智 (non‑discriminative wisdom) — the consciousness that rests in the nature of reality itself, where the back‑and‑forth of "subject apprehends object" called 二取戲論 (the conceptual play of dualistic grasping) has gone quiet. 後得位 is what happens when that bodhisattva "rises from samādhi" (出定). The mind rejoins the world of differentiated appearances, but it rejoins differently than it left, because it is no longer pulled by the dualistic grasping that originally constituted ordinary perception.
Both are needed. Each is, in the language of the《入中論善顯密意疏》(a Tibetan commentary on Candrakīrti's *Madhyamakāvatāra*), one face of a single ground's功德 (virtuous qualities). The commentary makes this plain at the third ground (發光地, the "Ground of Radiance"): "This is in the fundamental position, releasing the light of quieting controversy, able to extinguish all conceptual play of dualistic grasping" — that's the 根本定. And: "This is the third ground's 後得位, perceiving red or yellow light pervading all directions" — that's the 後得位. Two 行相 (manifestations), two "modes of operation," one ground.
The four points the commentary insists on
The疏 (commentary) develops the concept along four lines, and I want to walk through each carefully because every one of them has contemporary bite.
First, the difference in 行相 (manifestation). 後得位 is not the same as 根本定位, not a lower version of it, not a fall from it. It is a different — and in some ways more outwardly alive — display of the same realization. The third‑ground bodhisattva in 根本定位 is *quieted light*; the same bodhisattva in 後得位 is *radiating light into visible form*. The wisdom that was internally withdrawn from differentiation now externally illuminates differentiation. This is why the疏 can say the 後得位 "perceives red or yellow light pervading all directions" — this is not a metaphor for happy feelings, it is the bodhisattva's matured capacity to manifest visible form (色相) as a skillful act.
Second, 後得位 virtues are included in each ground. A modern reader might assume the ten grounds (十地) are ranked by depth of absorption alone — the deeper your samādhi, the higher your ground. The commentary explicitly rejects this. "The virtues of each ground's 後得位 are also included within that ground; therefore one does not speak only of the virtues of the fundamental wisdom." In other words, when scripture says the sixth ground is one thing and the seventh is another, the difference is not only in how deep the bodhisattva can plunge into the formless; it is also in how the bodhisattva can *bring the formless back into form* — what kind of color, what kind of teaching, what kind of compassionate activity.
Third, 後得位 is when the causes of Buddhahood are cultivated. This is the most important practical point. The eighth‑ground bodhisattva is, in some traditions, considered "自在" (at ease) in non‑conceptual wisdom — they can plunge into the formless and stay in the formless as they wish. But the疏 insists that precisely *because* they are at ease in non‑conceptual wisdom, they still must apply themselves in 後得位 to cultivating the 十力 (ten powers) and other佛果因行 (causal practices leading to the Buddha fruit). The commentary gets sharp here: "The claim that 'having realized the truth, one needs no further cultivation — one can specialize in realizing the truth' is the talk of a fool." (愚人妄說). This is not a minor remark. It is a direct repudiation of one of the most seductive spiritual errors, in any century.
Fourth, the relationship with 勝義地 (the ultimate ground). The疏 acknowledges that the way the 勝義地 is known, within any given ground, is "the same in what it apprehends and how it apprehends" — not because all grounds are identical, but because the *ultimate* dimension of any ground is by nature beyond words. The疏 uses the ten‑grounds scripture's image of "a bird's track in the sky" (如空中鳥跡) — there is a track, but it cannot be held, cannot be pointed to, cannot be communicated. This is *not* a denial of 後得位. It is a clarification: the *realization* in 後得位 does not become more real by being more articulable; the *service* of 後得位 remains essential even though the *peak experience* is inarticulate.
The technical definition held tight
Three sub‑points matter here, because contemporary readers often collapse them.
The "位" (*avasthā*) in 後得位 is the *state* or *position*, not the wisdom itself. When the疏 contrasts 後得位 with 根本定位, it is contrasting two states the same bodhisattva moves through. The contrast is not between two different minds (a "meditation mind" and a "life mind"), but between two phases of a single bodhisattva's life. And the term most often confused with it — 後得智 (pṛṣṭhalabdha‑jñāna, "subsequently attained wisdom") — is the *consciousness* that operates in this state, not the state itself. The疏 cares about the state because the state is what *gives* the wisdom its worldly capacity: the bodhisattva's 後得智 is what it is because it is the wisdom that occurs in 後得位, after the fundaments have been settled.
The two states are not simultaneous. "After" (後) is not a metaphor for "alongside." The疏 is plain: 根本定位 *first* quietens the dualistic play; *then* 後得位 arises with discriminative awareness. Without 根本定位, the 後得位 is just ordinary conceptual consciousness (虛妄分別). Without 後得位, the 根本定位 stays locked in the formless — useless to wandering beings.
The bodily example used in the疏 is helpful: in 根本定位 the bodhisattva is "releasing the light of quieting controversy, able to extinguish all conceptual play of dualistic grasping"; in 後得位, the bodhisattva "perceives red or yellow light pervading all directions." One extinguishes inside; the other lights up outside. Both are the third ground's virtue.
2. The Concept in the Larger Path
Where 後得位 sits in the ten grounds
To understand 後得位, you have to see what it is doing *in the system*. The entire ten‑ground scheme is, roughly, training the bodhisattva in two parallel capacities: how deep they can go into reality as it is, and how completely they can come back to reality as it appears. The 後得位 is the second capacity. It is one half of the bodhisattva's training.
This is why the later ten‑ground commentators (going beyond the疏 we're drawing on) keep noting that the higher grounds are recognizable not only by deeper samādhi but by more refined expressions of wisdom in form. The eighth ground (不動地, the "Immovable") is famous because the bodhisattva there is "自在" in non‑conceptual wisdom — they no longer retreat into absorption, and they no longer fall out of it. They dwell in it as the air dwells in the air. But even this dwelling is not the end of the training; the bodhisattva must now operate in 後得位 to actually accumulate the *form* of the Buddha — the thirty‑two marks, the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the eighteen exclusive qualities of a Buddha. None of these are produced by sitting in absorption. They are produced by a lifetime of activity that is, secretly, all後得位.
The 八地 (eighth ground) turning point
If you want to mark 後得位's most important developmental moment, it is the eighth ground. Before the eighth ground, the bodhisattva is still building the strength of non‑conceptual wisdom itself. After the eighth ground, the bodhisattva is *fully* in the training of bringing that wisdom into form. The疏's "foolish talk" comment is aimed at early‑ground practitioners who confuse a fleeting glimpse of the ultimate for the completion of the path. Such a glimpse, no matter how pure, does not produce a Buddha. A Buddha is produced by one who has cultivated without remainder in 後得位, all the way to the tenth ground.
So the picture is: 根本定位 is what *can* be done now; 後得位 is what *must* be done next; and the bodhisattva's life is the rhythmic dance of the two.
3. Life Walk-Through: 後得位 in the Day of a Contemporary Practitioner
The doctrinal structure is now reasonably clear. Let me walk through a few ordinary scenes, mapping them carefully to the classical definition so that the readers can feel where the join points can go wrong.
Scene 1: The morning practitioner, after meditation
You sit for forty minutes. You follow the breath. The thoughts keep arising. Slowly, something calms. The oscillation between "I am meditating" and "I am not meditating" dissolves. There is no longer a separate someone looking at the breath. There is just this, stripped of the back‑and‑forth of grasping. You stand up.
What is happening in classical terms? You have lived for a moment in 根本定位 — the state where 二取戲論 has quieted. There is no "you" apprehending a "breath."
You walk to the kitchen. The kettle is on. You pick up a cup. You see the steam. You feel the warmth. You do not have to think, "I am now picking up a cup that is for me." The cup is, the steam is, your hand is. The discriminative mind is awake, fully alert, fully aware of color, shape, temperature — but it is no longer the tight, grasping mind of a separate self skimming across surfaces. This is 後得位. The discriminative consciousness is operational, but it is not re‑knotted into the play of grasping. The疏's "perceiving red or yellow light pervading all directions" is, in this simple image, the post‑meditation cup of tea appearing in the bodhisattva's world as luminous form.
The mapping is exact: 根本定位 was the sitting; 後得位 is the walking, the seeing, the cup. If the cup is luminous, if the steam is vivid, you are in 後得位. If the cup is "just a cup" and you are "just tired" and you are already rehearsing the day's anxieties, you are not in 後得位 — you have slid into habitual conceptual grasping (虛妄分別), which is *the third option* the doctrine wants us to distinguish. The classical teaching is not just two‑fold (深度定 vs. 世俗散亂); it is three‑fold: 根本定位, 後得位, and ordinary samsaric conceptualization. The後得位 is in the middle, and it is *not* the same as ordinary thinking.
Scene 2: The activist after a silent retreat
A social worker or organizer comes back from a week of silent meditation. The retreat went well — there were moments of real quiet. They return to the office on Monday. Emails are piling up. A colleague is upset. A client is in crisis.
The classical question is: in which state are they operating? Are they in 根本定位 — still absorbed in the formless? This is actually a recognized failure mode of post‑retreat practitioners. They sit through the meeting in a *continuation* of retreat, and the world passes through them without being touched. This is 根本定位 extended past its proper boundary. The疏 would say they have not yet used theirsamādhi; they are still in it.
Or are they in 後得位? The discriminations are sharp — *this* person needs this, *that* email can wait, *this* client needs me to be fully present. The mind is fully activated, but the activity is not fueled by the small grasping of "I am the helper, you are the helped, my success is your salvation." The discriminations are lucid, warm, exhausting, and endless. This is the activist's 後得位 — the bodhisattva's "red or yellow light pervading all directions" manifesting as attention, speech, and action.
The danger in this scene is the one the疏 explicitly names. The retreatant returns and thinks, "Now that I have touched the real, I don't need to keep up the修行 of things like patient listening, competence, follow‑through — those are the 'form' needed for the Buddha's body, but I am beyond form." This is the "愚人妄說" (the talk of the fool) the疏 is repelling. The bodhisattva at the eighth ground, having reached the deep samādhi, is *exactly* the one who now must throw themselves into the more disciplined, less glamorous work of cultivating the qualities of a Buddha — which are not produced by samādhi but by sustained skillful activity.
The activist who mistakes their glimpse for the end of the path is doubly wrong: they have not realized it as deeply as they think, and they have skipped the part of the path that actually produces a Buddha.
Scene 3: The artist after a project
A musician finishes a piece. They have spent weeks in a state the cliché calls "in the flow" — they were not thinking of themselves as composer; the music was writing itself. They reach the end of the piece. They have to perform it, record it, deliver it, take notes from the producer, sit in editing sessions.
The flow state is roughly analogous to 根本定位 — the dualistic play of "I am composing" and "the music is being composed" has quieted. Now comes the work that is identical in structure to 後得位: the awareness of form, color, timing, audience, the producer's comments, the technical compromises. The mind is engaged with appearance, but engaged *as* appearance, not as the playback of separation. The piece is no longer "mine" in the way it was during the flow state; it is also no longer "not mine" — it is simply being carried by the same awareness that composed it.
The mis‑mapping here is to think of the post‑flow editing as "less spiritual" than the flow state. The疏 is firm: this is contrary to the doctrine. The post‑flow editing is *the whole point* of the flow state. Without it, the flow state is a wasted meditation. The疏's third‑ground example — the bodhisattva in 後得位 perceiving red or yellow light pervading all directions — is poetic, but underneath it is the very practical fact that the bodhisattva now has to *do something visible* with the light.
Scene 4: The therapist, the teacher, the parent
Therapists, teachers, parents — anyone whose daily life is a long sequence of being *with* another person's mind — live in the most exposed form of 後得位. They are not in 根本定位; they are in full discriminative consciousness. They are constantly reading, naming, responding. The same therapist or teacher may, in their own meditation time, briefly touch 根本定位. So their life is a rhythm: deepabsorption, then the world of forms with full attention, then deep absorption, then the world of forms.
The古典 warning is that the constant activity of the second state, if it is not *fed* by the first, becomes the ordinary 第三 state — samsaric grasping. The therapist who has never *experienced* 根本定位, even briefly, will find their discriminative work increasingly parasitic: they will use their clients to feel significant, they will use their insight to feel superior. 後得位 without 根本定位 is just ordinary mental activity with a thin disciplinary gloss. The疏's point is that the bodhisattva's 後得位 is precisely *digestible* because it is fed by the silent depth.
The most common mis‑mapping
The map you most often see today is the *two‑state* map: either you are "meditating" (spiritual) or you are "out in the world" (non‑spiritual). The doctrine of 後得位 is precisely the *three‑state* map: meditation (根本定位), skillful engagement (後得位), and samsaric grasping (虛妄分別). The middle one is what the classical tradition thinks the vast majority of actual bodhisattva lives consist of. The first one is the foundation. The third one is the disease. The second one is the cure and the calling.
4. Why Contemporary People Need This Concept
The hidden split between inner life and outer life
We live in a culture that has, perhaps uniquely, made the *container* of life the focus. Theorganization structure, the project plan, the calendar — these are the day's furnishings. The contemporary person's dilemma is not that they lack靈性 experience; it is that their靈性 experience and their working life are in two different rooms. The sitting cushion is in the study; the office is in the office. The person who has glimpses on retreat cannot find them again in the meeting.
The doctrine of 後得位 is one of the few pieces of classical teaching that names precisely this problem and offers a structure for it. It says: the formless state is not the whole of the path; the formless state is the *foundation* of the path; the path is deepened by the *integration* of the formless into form. The bodhisattva's life is not a binary; it is a rhythmic weave of two states. We have a word for this weave: 後得位. Without it, the weave collapses into either perpetual absorption (which is rare and unrealistic) or perpetual distraction (which is tragic and pervasive).
The "Monday morning Buddhism" problem
It is a familiar joke in someWestern佛教 circles: "Meditation is great on the cushion on Sunday night; by Monday morning, the wisdom is gone." What Monday morning Buddhism is really describing is the *absence* of 後得位. There is a meager sampling of 根本定位 on the cushion, and the rest of the week is the third state — samsaric grasping, with a faint memory of having been on the cushion. The doctrine of 後得位 is the diagnosis: the meditation was real, but the transition to 後得位 was not made. Theō was missing the thread that binds them.
The maturation of intuition into skillful means
In Jungian language, the contemporary person often *intuits* — has moments of clarity, glimpses of what is really going on. They are like the third‑ground bodhisattva in 根本定位, briefly releasing the light of quieting controversy. But the maturation of intuition into actual wisdom in the world is the work of 後得位. The insight that "the self is constructed" becomes thedana of giving — but only if it is developed in 後得位 into the ability to actually give without re‑constructing a self around the giving. The insight that "all beings are interdependent" becomes the daily practice of *seeing* that interdependence in the irritations of the colleague, the demands of the child, the limits of the spouse — but only if it is trained in 後得位.
Warding off the deepest trap
The deepest trap, the疏 says, is the trap where someone has a glimpse, mistakes the glimpse for the path complete, and concludes that no further cultivation is needed. This is the trap of the *contemporary spiritual consumer*: attends a retreat, reads a book, has a peak experience, embraces the image of themselves as liberated, and stops working. The疏's words are severe: this is the talk of a fool.
The mature teaching is: a glimpse is the beginning, not the end. The path is, in significant measure, the long 後得位 of practicing the form of a Buddha in the world. The competent teacher of a craft calls this part "the ten thousand hours." The bodhisattva calling this part is the *ten grounds' worth* of 後得位 work.
5. Common Misreadings and Clarifications
Misreading 1: 後得位 is just ordinary thinking-after-meditation
This is the most common misreading. It comes from the modern cultural assumption that all thinking is the same kind of activity. The doctrine rejects this. There is a specific quality of discriminative awareness that arises *after* the dualistic play has quieted — it is luminous, ungrasping, not grasping at "self" or "other." This is 後得位. Ordinary post‑meditation thinking continues to be samsaric; it has not been quietened at all. The distinction is not frequency of thoughts but the *mode* of awareness. A practitioner who has been in 根本定位 *once, briefly* will already have a sense of the difference. The cup, after thecup, after the tripod, has a different quality.
Misreading 2: 後得位 is the bodhisattva "going back to samsara"
This misreading is sometimes unconscious. It sees 根本定位 as the real practice and 後得位 as a polite concession to conventional life. The疏 inverts this evaluation. The positivity of 後得位 is at least as important as the positivity of 根本定位, because 後得位 is when the work of a Buddha is done. The third‑ground bodhisattva's "red or yellow light pervading all directions" is not an unfortunate descent; it is a key expression of the third ground's virtue. To see 後得位 as a fall is to revert to a quietist heresy the疏 explicitly repudiates, where the bodhisattva decides that once they have touched the real, they have no further obligations.
Misreading 3: 後得位 is just 後得智
The two terms are easy to confuse because they share three words of one another in translation. 後得位 is the *state* (avasthā) in which the bodhisattva operates. 後得智 is the *wisdom* (jñāna) that operates in that state. Without the state, the wisdom either does not arise or arises in a degenerate form. The疏 keeps the distinction to emphasize that what is needed is not just to gain a particular kind of wisdom — it is to organize one's life so that one's wisdom is *repeatedly* in the appropriate state. A weekend glimpse of 後得智 is not the same as an enduring жизнь in 後得位.
Misreading 4: "I have realized the truth, so I no longer need to keep up the practices"
This is the misreading the疏 calls the talk of a fool (愚人妄說). It is an interesting historical fact that this error is recognizable in *every* spiritual culture and *every* era. The form changes — in one century it might be the sannyasin who says, "I have seen God, what is left for me to do?"; in another century it might be the advocate of "instant enlightenment" who says, "I have seen the self is empty, what is left?" — but the underlying claim is the same. The疏's position is that this claim is a structural error about the path. The bodhisattva's path is not completed by the realization; it is *fueled* by the realization, and the fuel is consumed in the long work of 後得位. The wisdom without the work is a sun without a season.
Misreading 5: The "千葉的空" (a thousand-petaled emptiness) sentiment
Sometimes the contemporary reader, having heard of the ten grounds, wants to imagine them as a kind of spiritual hierarchy: the seventh ground is "more enlightened" than the third, the tenth is "more enlightened" than the seventh. The疏's third point gently disqualifies this. The 後得位 virtues of each ground are part of what defines that ground. Being at the tenth ground is not only going deeper into the formless; it is also mastering a kind of visible compassion entirely beyond the third ground's red or yellow light. The point is not that more formless is better; the point is that a more integrated dance of 根本定位 and 後得位 is better. The image of 空 (emptiness) as a static, "high" place is itself a misreading; the classically claimed 空 is a dynamic, paired structure.
Misreading 6: The "always post-meditating" mistake
There is a contemporary phenomenon where someone has read about non‑dual awareness and now believes that they should *always* be in 後得位, never settling into sustained 根本定位. They treat every act of focusing as a regression. The疏 is again clear: the bodhisattva cultivates *both* states; the path is not the elimination of one or the other. A practitioner who never grounds in the quiet is likely not actually in 後得位 much of the time either — they are likely in the third state, the state of dissociative fantasizing that they are in 後得位. The classical practice is rhythmic: deep, surface, deep, surface. The rhythm is the path.
A delicate clarification
The疏 is also firm that the *peak* experience in 根本定位 cannot be communicated by the bodhisattva who has it. The bird's track in the sky is the bodhisattva's most intimate contact. This is *not* a license for the bodhisattva to refuse to function in 後得位 — it is a recognition that no matter how articulate the 後得位 becomes, the *deep* of the path cannot be conveyed in language. It is to be lived, not known. The ancient hermit might have to become the visible teacher, the visible benefactor, the visible form of red and yellow light. That is 後得位. It is the bodhisattva's long walk back to the world, in words and in forms, with the unspoken track still shining in the sky behind them.
Closing Reflection
If a contemporary reader takes only one thing from this exposition, I would hope it is the *three‑state* image: not two states (meditation and life) but three states (depth, integration, and grasping). The middle state is what most of the bodhisattva's life is, classically. The middle state is what most of our own lives, when we are honest, *should* be — but very often, regrettably, is not. The classical teaching of 後得位 is offered as both a description and a structural invitation: arrange your life so that the discriminative mind you use at work, in conversation, in relation to children, in the kitchen, while driving, while making love — is *fed* by, and *silent with*, the deepest silence you have ever touched. That is 後得位. It is the breath of the bodhisattva's day. It is, classically, what the path is *for*.